


Disco Chicken

by DesertScribe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Halloween Costumes, Magic, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:09:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/pseuds/DesertScribe





	Disco Chicken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/gifts).

"What are you making?"

The sudden question made Jerry startle so badly that he almost stabbed himself in the hand with his craft scissors.

"What? Who said that?" he demanded, looking around the room. He had been working on putting the finishing touches on his Halloween costume for about half an hour, more than long enough to get into 'the zone' so to speak, and the sudden voice cutting through the silence when Jerry thought he was alone was completely unexpected. His roommate, Alyssa, was supposedly working the graveyard shift tonight, so Jerry didn't expect to see her again until tomorrow at the earliest. That expectation continued to hold true as Alyssa remained nowhere to be seen.

"It's rude to answer a question with a question," said the voice, which sounded nothing like Alice and more like a small child doing a Joe Pesci impression and seemed to be coming from the direction of Jerry's bed, which was completely free of human occupants. "That means it's doubly rude to answer a question with two questions. Two wrongs don't make a right, you know."

"But three rights make a left," Jerry responded without hesitation as he got down on his knees to check if anyone was hiding under the bed (there wasn't), because apparently not even the confusion of finding himself having a conversation with thin air was enough to prevent him from firing off his stock answer to the old cliché.

"Ooh, look who thinks he's a funny guy. Maybe there's hope for you after all," said the voice. Jerry's new position on the floor made it easy to hear that the voice was definitely coming from above the bed instead under it. "I mean, don't quit your day job to pursue a career in comedy or anything like that just yet," continued the voice an Jerry stood up and looked around the room again. There was not anywhere where a person could be hidden from view, not even the closet, whose doors were standing wide open. "But maybe there's hope for you not boring me to tears like the last few people I was stuck with. So, let's start over from the beginning with me saying, 'What are you making?'"

"I'd rather start you telling me who you are and why you've apparently hidden a camera and speaker in my bedroom." It was the only explanation Jerry could think of, though he could not imagine why anyone would bother doing that.

"Ugh, again with the non-answers! And now with bonus false accusations, too! You're really terrible at this whole 'conversation' thing," said the voice. "No wonder you're sitting here doing whatever it is you're doing on a Friday night instead of off socializing." It (he?) gave an over dramatic sigh. "I guess I'm going to have to put up with it, though, because the curiosity is killing me here."

"You're the creepy weirdo who broke into my apartment to plant stuff in my bedroom, so I feel like, of the two of us, I'm the one who's more likely to end up getting killed here," Jerry said, still scanning around his room to see if he could spot anything out of place. Things were a little more chaotic than usual thanks to Jerry's costuming project, but everything seemed to be exactly how he usually left it. The assortment of small items scattered across his bed were new, but he had put all of those there himself that evening when he got home, having bought them at a thrift store on his way home, and none of them looked like someone could have hid a spy camera in them even if anyone had wanted to.

"Hey, buddy, I didn't break in anywhere, and I didn't plant anything. You bought me. You brought me here. And now you're getting crabby for no good reason," groused the voice. "If that's how you're going to be, then you can just take me right back to where you got me so I can try my luck with someone else."

Had the voice just said 'bought me'? It was a ridiculous thought, but Jerry stopped searching around his bed for hidden speakers and stared at the collection of thrift store costume jewelry. When his gaze fell on the oversized necklace which he had intended to wear as part of his costume, the gem in the center of the pendant, which Jerry had assumed was just red glass (because it couldn't have been anything more valuable than glass on the $5 bargain rack, could it?), gave a faint flicker of inner light as if it were winking at him.

"Ahhh," said the necklace, "eye contact! A step in the right direction at last! Now, since we finally seem to be on the same page here, I'll ask you for the third time, 'What are you making?'"

"I'm-I'm making a costume for a Halloween party," Jerry said after a few moments of opening and closing his mouth like a fish, because what the heck had his life turned into in the past five minutes?

"Yes, but what is it supposed to be?" The necklace's tone of voice made it clear that it thought Jerry was an idiot. To be more specific, the necklace's tone of voice had sounded like it thought Jerry was an idiot throughout the entire conversation, but now it sounded like it thought he was even more of an idiot than before.

"It's a dragon." He gestured at the hanger on the back of his door which held a body suit covered in overlapping layers of scales made of aluminum foil over a supporting layer of craft foam. Then he held up the mask, also made of foil over foam, which he had been working on when the necklace first interrupted him.

"A dragon? Wow," the necklace, or maybe just the gem at the center of the necklace, laughed at Jerry, "not only are you a terrible conversationalist, but you're also just plain Wrong about stuff."

"I think I know what my Halloween costume is going to be," Jerry grumbled. He knew it wasn't his best costuming work ever, but he was proud of it anyway since he had only started working on it a week ago when he and all the other guests invited to this particular Halloween party had found out what they were assigned to dress up as by picking slips of paper out of a hat. The whole point of the exercise was everyone had to put together their costume on short notice instead of perfecting it for months beforehand. He took the bodysuit off the hanger, climbed into it, put on the mask, and then spun around in place to show off the full effect. For a week's work, it was a damn good dragon costume.

"You think you know, but you're Wrong, like the kind of wrong that's so wrong it needs a capital letter to emphasize how wrong you are," sneered the necklace. "That isn't a dragon costume. That's a costume of whatever you'd call the offspring of the unholy union between a chicken and a discoball. Here, let me show you an actual dragon." Before Jerry had a chance to protest, there was a flash of light and the room suddenly seemed a lot smaller. Jerry seemed a lot scailier. "Now _that's_ a dragon," said the necklace.

"I'll take your word for it," Jerry muttered with a lot more bass in his voice than he had ever dreamed possible. Inside, he was desperately trying not to panic and also trying not to move, because not only was he a lot bigger than before, but he also had several new appendages growing out of his body where he had previously had hollow shapes made of steel wire, fabric and the ubiquitous craft foam, including wings, which he could feel clamped tight against his back, and a tail, which he could feel sticking out of the base of his spine and coiling down around his feet. His wings wanted to spread out and take to the sky, which wasn't practical at the moment given how he was indoors, and his tail was just itching to start lashing around in agitation, which would probably wreck all his stuff.

"As you should," said the necklace, "because I, unlike you, know what dragons look like. I've met dragons. I spent time hanging out in dragon hoards. Those were some of the best centuries of my life. Then humanity drove dragons to extinction and started claiming dragons had only ever been imaginary anyway. Then a few short millennia later _you_ come along, buy me from a thrift store while telling the clerk, and I quote, 'This will be perfect for my Halloween costume,' and take me back to your place to show me this _disco chicken outfit_." Disgust dripped from the necklace's voice. "And you expect me to be part of it? Like I said before, you're Wrong with a capital W. Even if I had never seen a dragon, I would still have standards, and your disco chicken outfit would be below them."

"Good for you on sticking to your standards and all that, but I can't go to my friends' Halloween party like this," Jerry growled.

"Why not?" said the necklace. "You're glorious now, and that gloriousness should be shared with the world. Not to mention, you're sure to be the most realistic looking monster there."

"What I am is too big to fit through the door without potentially causing major structural damage," said Jerry. He considered trying to convince the necklace that going to the party as an actual dragon would be cheating, but the necklace sounded like it valued its own self-image over things like fair play or bodily autonomy.

"Fair point," the necklace admitted. The gem gave another flash of light, and Jerry found himself back in human form just as quickly as he had become a dragon.

"Thanks," he said.

"No trouble at all," the necklace said with a worrying amount of cheer in its high-pitched voice. "I'll just turn you back into a dragon again once we're outside."

Jerry started to protest but stopped when he realized that there was a part of him which deeply regretted not getting a chance to test those wings he had felt on his back for what now seemed like a too brief period of time. "Okay," he said after a moment of thought. "Just give me a few minutes to put my costuming supplies away."

"I like a man who knows how to keep things tidy," said the necklace.

Jerry figured that probably translated to an affirmative. This wasn't necessarily the start of a beautiful friendship, Jerry thought as he began straightening the mess with a growing sense of excitement. But then again, whispered the part of him full of growing excitement at the thought of flying, maybe it is.

**The End**


End file.
